Frequently asked questions

Aged Care Costs helps families get a first estimate of what aged care could cost a parent, and understand the rules behind the numbers. You enter the details you have, and our calculator works out an estimate using the government's published rates. You can stop at the free estimate, or get a written report that explains each fee.

No. Everything we provide is general information. We explain how the rules work and show your figures, based on the details you enter, but we don't take into account your family's goals, needs or full situation, and we don't tell you which option to choose. We don't hold an Australian financial services licence. See our Disclaimer.

No. Your figures are worked out by our calculator from the details you enter. Nobody reviews them or checks your family's circumstances. If you'd like someone to look at your whole situation and tell you what to do, that's the job of a licensed financial adviser.

Free estimate gives you a one-page estimate of the fees and room costs on screen. Report (A$99.00 AUD, including GST) writes your figures up as a report, explains each part of the fees and includes a guided walkthrough.

See Pricing for the full list.

Our estimates use the government's published rates and rules, and each one shows the date its rates apply from. But an estimate is only as good as the details entered. If something is missing, out of date or wrong, the estimate will be too.

Treat it as a starting point for your conversations, not a final figure. Before big decisions, such as selling the home or paying a lump sum, it's worth talking to a licensed aged care financial adviser.

There are a few common reasons:

• the details Services Australia (or DVA) uses in the means assessment differ from the ones entered here;
• rates have changed since the estimate was made, as many aged care rates are updated during the year;
• the aged care home's prices or agreements differ from what was entered;
• your situation includes something our calculator doesn't cover yet.

Your parent's actual fees are set in the official fee letter and the agreements with the home. Where our estimate differs, those documents apply. If you think we've got something wrong, please tell us through our Contact us page.

Yes, a few, for now. When your details fall into one of these, the estimate and report say so clearly rather than guessing.

No fee figures shown. The estimate explains why and suggests talking to a licensed adviser:

• rent from the former home, when your parent moved into care before 1 January 2017
• a couple living apart because of illness, where one partner gets a transitional pension rate, or where a rate we need hasn't been set yet
• both partners moving into care
• a super income stream that started before 1 January 2015

Fees shown, but not the effect on the Age Pension:

• any couple, including one where a partner still lives at home. The exception is a couple living apart because of illness, where we do work out the pension (unless one of the cases above applies)
• selling the home

Figures shown, with a note on what's left out:

• a gap between leaving home and moving into care, such as a hospital stay first. The two-year exemption for the home is counted from the day your parent moved into care
• with a partner still at home, what happens later if that partner moves into care or dies
• choosing a lump sum that's bigger than the savings entered

We use them to calculate your estimate and produce any report you order. We don't save your calculator answers. They're held in your browser for up to an hour, then deleted. When you start buying a report, we save the answers it's based on to your account. If you don't finish paying, we delete them within 24 hours. Once you've paid, the answers and the finished report stay in your account, visible only to you, so you can open it again. Your household's figures are stored in Australia. We don't sell your information, and we don't share it with aged care homes, advisers or advertisers. Please enter only what the calculator asks for. You don't need to give names, Medicare numbers or Centrelink reference numbers. See our Privacy policy.

No. Our own calculator works out every figure. Some features use an AI service based in the United States to answer questions you type and to explain a step in plain English, but we don't send it your household's financial details. Please don't type names, contact details or financial figures into the question box. Our Privacy policy explains this in full.

If we don't deliver your report within 15 minutes of your payment being confirmed, we refund the price shown at checkout, including GST, without you needing to ask. You can also ask for a full refund at any time before your report is delivered, for any reason. Just contact us through our Contact us page with your order number or the email address you used. Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law always apply. See our Refund policy.

Consider it before decisions that are large or hard to undo: selling or keeping the home, how to pay for the room, gifting, or anything affecting a partner who stays at home. A specialist aged care financial adviser looks at your parent's whole situation and can tell you what to do, which we can't. Ask for their fee in writing first, and check they're on ASIC's Financial Advisers Register through Moneysmart. Bringing your report can help your time with them go further.

• Services Australia's Financial Information Service explains money matters, including aged care costs and the pension, free of charge.
• Services Australia handles the means assessment and can explain your fee letter.
• My Aged Care covers assessments, finding a home and the official fee estimators.
• OPAN offers free, independent advocates who can help with providers, agreements and complaints.
• Moneysmart has independent general guides on aged care costs.

A home can explain its prices and how the payment options work, but its staff generally aren't licensed to tell you what to do with your money. The home also has its own interest in how the room is paid. That doesn't make its information wrong, but it's worth checking. Our reports can show the options side by side, and a licensed adviser can help you decide.

We aren't aware of a general way to extend it for a house that's simply empty. Services Australia can confirm whether any exception applies.

Yes. Tell Services Australia (or DVA, if your parent gets a DVA pension) when your parent moves into care, and again if the home is sold, rented, or someone moves in or out. For aged care fees, a change has to be reported within 28 days.

This applies to families where your parent is a veteran, or a war widow or widower, and gets a payment from DVA. DVA has its own page on how aged care affects its income support payments. Check with DVA if that applies.

The aged care means test and the Age Pension both use the same gifting rules. A gift is anything your parent gives away, or sells or transfers for less than it's worth. That includes the house, part of the house, or money.

Transferring the home to a child, or selling it to them cheaply, would usually be a large gift. For five years, most of its value would still count for your parent. That can mean more is counted than if they had kept it.

A transfer can also bring stamp duty, tax and family-law questions, and it can't easily be undone. That's why it's worth getting advice from a licensed financial adviser and a lawyer first.

Some families look at borrowing against the house to pay the daily payment or the fees, and keep the home. There are two main kinds of loan: the Home Equity Access Scheme, a government loan run by Services Australia, and a reverse mortgage from a lender.

Both loans eat into the equity left in the home over time.

These are credit products. Before signing, it's important to understand the total cost over the years your parent might need care.

It's calculated like interest, but it isn't a loan repayment. Nothing is being paid off. Paying the DAP for a year doesn't reduce the room price still owed. It's simply what your parent pays to use the room on each day that the price hasn't been paid as a lump sum.

That's why many families compare it with rent. Like rent, it buys the use of the room, and none of it comes back.

Yes. The published price is a ceiling, not a fixed price. You and the home can agree on a lower one.

It's reasonable to ask, especially if:

• the room is smaller, shared or less well placed than others at the same price;
• the room has been empty for some time;
• the home has similar rooms listed at different prices.

Once a price is agreed, it's written into the accommodation agreement before your parent moves in. It then stays the same while your parent stays in that room, even if the home later changes its published prices. If the room is paid by the day, the daily amount can still rise twice a year (in March and September) for most people who moved in from 1 November 2025.

If you'd like support with the conversation, a free aged care advocate from OPAN can help.

For aged care fees, a paid RAD still counts as an asset. That's true even if a family member paid it.

For the pension, a paid RAD isn't counted in the assets test, and no income is deemed on it.

So for aged care fees, paying a RAD changes how the money counts, not whether it counts. For the pension, it can take the money out of the tests altogether.

Services Australia (or DVA, for veterans) works out the means-tested amounts, so its fee letter shows the actual effect.

Paying a daily accommodation payment doesn't change the pension directly. But any cash kept aside to pay those daily amounts is still counted as an asset and deemed.

For people on the rules that began on 1 November 2025, one fee does. The non-clinical care contribution has two limits, and once either is reached it stops for good.

The contribution stops at whichever of these comes first:

1. A lifetime dollar limit. Once your parent has paid $140,652.80 in total, it stops.
2. A four-year limit. Once your parent has been charged it for four years' worth of days, it stops. The days don't have to be in a row.

Both limits apply for life. They don't reset if your parent moves to another home.

People on the older 1 July 2014 arrangements pay a means-tested care fee instead, which has its own yearly and lifetime caps.

That depends on how much your parent pays each day:

• If they pay close to the daily cap, the dollar limit is usually reached first.
• If they pay a smaller amount each day, the four-year limit may come first.

The means-tested care fee is part of the 1 July 2014 fee arrangements. Your parent pays it if they started permanent care on or after 1 July 2014 but before 1 November 2025, and haven't opted in to the new arrangements. Under the "no worse off" rule, it also applies to someone who was approved for home care on 12 September 2024 and moved into a home on or after 1 November 2025. They pay the fee worked out in the usual way. People who had been getting home care without a break since before 1 July 2014 don't pay it at all. People who moved in before 1 July 2014 pay an income-tested fee instead. As at 1 October 2026, the means-tested care fee can't be more than $380.46 a day. It stops for the rest of the year once $37,055.98 has been paid, and for good at $88,934.57. People who moved in on the 1 November 2025 arrangements pay the hotelling and non-clinical care contributions instead. Services Australia (or DVA, for veterans) works out the amount.

Support at Home replaced the Home Care Packages Program on 1 November 2025. If your parent had a package, or was approved for one, some older rules still protect them.

The protection is called the "no worse off" rule. It covers people who, on or before 12 September 2024:

• were receiving a Home Care Package;
• had been approved for one; or
• were waiting for one on the national priority list.

People approved after that date pay the standard Support at Home contributions.

The government's rules for Support at Home providers don't allow separate administration or travel fees, and those costs can't come out of the care management money. Providers build them into the price of each service instead. The one exception is equipment and home changes, where a capped admin or coordination charge is allowed.

Public hospitals are run by each state and territory, and so are their rules about patients waiting for aged care. There's no single national rule.

Some hospitals expect a patient to accept the first suitable place once they no longer need hospital care. Ask your parent's hospital what its own policy is.

Accepting a place doesn't lock your parent in forever. They can move to another home later. But moving can bring new agreements, a new room price and, depending on the timing and their arrangements, different rules for paying for the room. Check before you move.

The government now publishes wait times. Its report for April to June 2026 found:

• A place in an aged care home: of the people who moved in between April and June 2026, half had waited less than 138 days, counted from when they applied through My Aged Care. That includes the time it took to be assessed. The average was much longer, because some people wait a very long time.
• Support at Home: the typical time from applying to starting ongoing services was 297 days.

Waits differ a lot by state and by area, and by how flexible a family can be about which home.

The answer is in a list set out in the aged care rules: everything on it is covered by the standard fees, and a home can't charge extra for it. Anything beyond that list may cost more, but only under set rules.

The list itself leaves some things out. Hairdressing is one of them, so it can be charged for. Some of these, such as a visiting hairdresser or the pharmacy, may bill your parent directly rather than through the home. Ask how each one is charged.

Mistakes with aged care charges happen. A fee might be worked out on the wrong rate, a service might be billed that wasn't delivered, or an extra might keep being charged after it stopped. The good news is that overcharged amounts can be recovered.

There are two different kinds of mistake, and they go to different places.

• The provider charged the wrong amount. This goes to the provider, then the Commission.
• The assessed amount itself looks wrong. This goes to Services Australia (or DVA for veterans).

Your parent can apply for financial hardship help. They'll need a means assessment for that.

If an aged care home becomes insolvent and can't pay the refund, the Australian Government guarantees it, including interest due since your parent left care. This is the Accommodation Payment Guarantee Scheme.

The home's staff can explain their room prices, the payment options and their agreements, and they're usually happy to. But the home has its own interest in how the room is paid for, and its staff generally aren't licensed financial advisers. Treat what they say as information, and get independent help before deciding how to pay.